The pressure to carry guns — whether to show off, show strength or show up rivals — is strong, they said. Resisting it can be difficult. They felt they had no other options. Failing to arm might mean becoming the next target.

Though guns in schools always make headlines, such incidents are rare, said Steve Suknaic, Dauphin County’s Juvenile Probation Department head.

View full sizeAlmost 70 Dauphin County youths were arrested in gun crimes last year, nearly double the 2009 figure.

Almost 70 Dauphin County youths were arrested in gun crimes in 2010, up from 38 in 2009. That figure does not include youths charged as adults in gun crimes, Suknaic said.

Zachery. John. Lyle. Three teens learning the hard way that no good can come of trying to be big and bad.

Playing with guns “is no good,” John said. “All it does is lead to this, being locked up. I’m going to make sure this is my last trip. It’s just pointless.”

Zachery: Tough childhood

Zachery was 2 when child services in the Lancaster area took him away from his drug-addicted parents. His father has been jailed his entire life. His mother, he said hopefully, has been working on her sobriety for the last two years.

Shuffling from foster home to foster home, he encountered abuse. That wasn’t as bad, though, as living in homes of first-time foster parents who “were all excited to be foster parents and then [were disappointed when] I came along with all my issues.”

He ran away. He stole. He fought with his foster siblings.

The placements began. Boot camp. Detention centers. Rounds of counseling followed, he said, but between ages 7 and 10, he was never in one home for more than three months.

He learned, he said, to be “just fine” and hide the hurt beneath a tough, angry facade.

The home he found in Susquehanna Twp. would be his 15th and longest placement — two years. Trouble started the first week of school, where he said he got beaten up. He brought a gun to school. That got him expelled. When he returned for high school, he fought, smoked weed and was arrested for burglary.

Despite community service and court dates, he said, his drug habit grew. He made friends. He sold guns to support his habit. A 9 mm could be $80. He’d jack up the price to cover his costs.

He sold them, he said, to the rich kids who had parents with good incomes. They wanted to be cool and had the money to buy it, he said.

He never felt unsafe at school, he said. Drugs fueled his gun habit and tossing one in the backpack was akin to someone else tossing a trumpet in a locker. He had business to conduct after classes let out, though he said it was never on school grounds.

His own gun was stashed in his bedroom.

“If it’s a part of your life and how you’re raised, it takes something like this, getting arrested, to open your eyes,” he said.

Earlier this year, Zachery, now 16, and another friend plotted to steal guns from the home of a classmate whose parents owned a lot of weapons. There was no reason behind it, other than the thought of being able to buy more pot or maybe some other extra stuff, he said.

He and the friend kicked in the door, loaded duffel bags with handguns, bullets and holsters, ran out and split the loot.

Then one night, the police were at the door.

He’ll never forget, he said, the way his heart hammered as the township cruisers rolled up to his house. His frantic dash to hide the weapons in another room. The fact his own gun and the telltale Chuck Taylors, which had left shoeprints in the snow, remained. “It was all over from there,” he said.

He was locked up in January on firearms and burglary charges. In April, he was released to Alternative Rehabilitation Communities, a secure residential care program serving about 140 kids from 40 counties across Pennsylvania.

Zachery was placed in Lebanon. He tried to run away twice.

Counselors lasered in on him. It was the first time in his life someone didn’t just give up, he said. “I’m glad this happened to me,” he said. “This is different from a lot of places I’ve been. The staff talks to one another. If you don’t comply, the one shift tells the next one and they’re on you, too. They make you work for what you want.”

He’s participating in the program’s culinary course and is exploring veterinary careers.

Zachery said the lifestyle of guns and drugs doesn’t lead to a future. “It might be fun for a while, when you’re out in the street. But you will get caught. There’s a lot of other stuff in life that can bring you joy. That’s what we want. A sense of belonging, that we’re not alone.”

John: Revenge for brother's death

John remembers the blood, bright against the snow.

It was his older brother’s. He’d been shot steps from his Harrisburg home.

Now 18, John remembers his mother’s tears. His own seething rage.

Three years ago, not long after the shooting and the angry fights John said were a by-product of his desire to prove his toughness and protect his family, he went looking for a gun.

He didn’t have to go far, he said. A friend had one. John bought the sawed-off shotgun for $25. Sometimes, he’d walk the streets with it tucked up his sleeve.

His mother, Acquanetta, didn’t know. His father was out of touch.

“I was a good child. I had both my parents until I was 6, but then they started messing with each other and weren’t together anymore,” he said. “I helped my mom a lot. But when I was 14, 15, I started getting around other people. My mom said something to me, but I didn’t listen. I started getting into the streets.”

He stole a car and earned a stint in a detention center. He was on probation and shaped up, he said. When probation ended and his brother died, he started fighting people.

“It was uncomfortable to walk around my neighborhood, so I started to carry,” he said. “My brother got killed, and it was all about revenge, for seeing my mom cry.”

He’d been an honor student. He attended technical school and was interested in machine work. The deeper he got into the street, hanging out, the less he attended, he said.

His mom, who worked full time, wouldn’t know until she got calls from the school, he said.

John was home alone one day last year when his little brother called him from a cell phone. Some kids were going to “swoop” him, street slang for a fight. He needed help. John threw on black clothes and gloves, grabbed the gun and headed for the street.

Unbeknown to him, a neighbor had spotted the fight and already called the cops.

Racing up to the group, John drew his weapon. “Don’t you touch my brother,” he yelled. “Or I’ll shoot you.”

Behind him, the police, who’d beat him to the scene, drew their weapons.

Terrified, John ran. He tossed the gun in a yard as he bolted through alleys. He remembers those terrifying moments when the police arrived at his door. He stepped out of the shower and put a towel around his waist.

The kids who’d gone after his brother identified him from the back of a cruiser.

The police took him down to the station in the towel, John said.

It looked as if John might be heading to adult prison. But his prints weren’t on the gun and prosecutors offered him a plea, he said.

The threat of real, hard time was enough to make him realize this was serious.

John’s counselors said he’s taken to the program well, showing maturity and better decision-making skills with each passing day.

His mother, Acquanetta, said she refuses to give up on her son.

Recently, a judge was set to release John. But she and the staff of Alternative Rehabilitation pleaded to keep him in so he could complete the eight-week community transition program. The transition program offers freedom in small doses, with lots of counseling follow-up to discuss how teens handled the difficulties they encountered once intense supervision ended.

The judge agreed. “I told [my son] that he may be ready to get out, but is he ready for the streets?” she said. “Every day I call him, and I’m telling him somebody got shot, somebody got robbed. There’s a lot going on out here.”

John, his voice strong, said he’s thinking differently about what it means to be a man and provide for and protect his mom and siblings.

“I’d tell my little brothers this ain’t no game,” John said. “I’m going to tell them what it’s like to be locked up. One of my little brothers is a straight-A student, man. But in a way, him, the others, they’re too grown. They know a lot of stuff they shouldn’t.”

Lyle: Incarceration was a wake-up call

By the time he was 13, Lyle had lived with his mother, father, grandfather and uncle in the Philadelphia area.

He’d started getting into minor scrapes with the law at about age 10. Thinking it would be safer for him in Berwick, he was sent to his grandmother’s house.

But Lyle had already spent time there during summers and holidays. A cousin introduced him to older kids who had different ideas of fun.

One day, Lyle, now 16, and a buddy decided to cut class at second period. They headed out the back door of the school gym and walked to the home of a 19-year-old friend.

His door was open, Lyle said, but he wasn’t home. Hoping for a place to lay low until school let out, they started wandering through the house.

They found a sniper rifle on a table. “We just took it,” Lyle said. “We went over the fence, along the river and opened up the case it was in. It didn’t have bullets.”

The boys went to an abandoned house and stashed it upstairs, figuring they’d come back and figure out what to do with it later.

As they walked back outside, the school principal pulled up in his car. The cops, the principal said, were down the street.

When Lyle was brought back to school, the marijuana and bong he’d had on him was discovered. But the cops weren’t interested in the weed. The friend, being questioned in the next room, told them about the gun.

They sent Lyle to a detention center for two weeks, but then he was released on home monitoring. From there, he skipped to a foster home and then Vision Quest, another rehab program. He was clean for three months, but then fell back into drugs.

One night, he wanted to borrow his grandmother’s car. She said no, and if he left, she’d call the cops. But she’d made the same threat to his uncle, he said, and never followed through. He took the car. She called. Lyle got busted.

He had to serve time for the original charge, possessing a firearm. Incarceration, he said, has been a wake-up call.

“A lot of people put that [tough] image for people,” Lyle said. “But even if they put on the image, they still get locked up.”

TIPS FOR PARENTS

Ask your children questions. Have they heard about guns in school, friends with guns? How do they feel about guns? Revisit that conversation from time to time.

Secure your guns. Do not assume your children can’t open lock-boxes.

Reassure your children that it is OK to tell someone if they feel unsafe in school.

Don’t be afraid to talk to children at age-appropriate levels about the consequences of mishandling or illegally procuring guns. From death to incarceration, they are real and serious.

Even if you don’t have guns, other adults in your child’s life might. Teach children never to play with or pick up a gun. If they are with someone who is playing with a gun, they should leave and tell an adult.

Educate children. Enroll them in a gun safety class, which will teach respect and understanding for firearms. Go with them and learn yourself.

Spend time with your children. Take time to listen to their concerns, achievements, fears and successes. Kids who feel like they matter to someone, even one person, are less likely to seek affiliation through involvement in drugs and gangs.

ABOUT THIS STORY

Alternative Rehabilitation Communities is a residential care program serving about 140 kids from all across Pennsylvania. Some of those young people have been convicted of gun crimes.

The Patriot-News received a rare opportunity to speak at length with three young people who ended up in the program because of guns. All three said they learned that they were on a road that led to no future.

They shared their stories partly in hopes of encouraging other people to avoid their mistakes. And they wanted to show they still had a chance do something good in their own lives.

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